Timmins Gold board plans changes, but backs management

TORONTO, June 24 (Reuters) - The board of Timmins Gold Corp
is standing behind the company's management but plans
to shake up its own ranks in the midst of a proxy fight with top
shareholder Sentry Investments.

Timmins announced four new independent board nominees on
Monday, and said five of the current eight directors will not
run for re-election at the company's July 31 annual meeting.

Sentry owns about 17 percent of Timmins, a small
Canadian-based gold producer. It is running a dissident slate of
six nominees, and has criticized the company's management.

Timmins director Paula Rogers, who heads a special board
committee struck to respond to Sentry, said the company's
nominees would create a board "for all shareholders".

"We're looking at, really, industry veterans," she said. "At
the same time we're able to preserve the experience and the
knowledge of the current management team, which would be lost if
the dissident is successful."

Sentry has assailed Timmins management for failing to
"clearly define a strategy" to boost the company's value or use
capital efficiently. Timmins owns the San Francisco gold mine in
Mexico. In the first quarter it produced 36,000 gold equivalent
ounces at cash costs of $703 per ounce.

"We believe in our management team," Rogers said. "The
current management, the CEO and the president, they built the
mine on time and on budget, and they've delivered over 400
percent shareholder return since the IPO in 2006."

Timmins' new board nominees include George Brack, a former
investment banker who also worked in corporate development for
gold miner Placer Dome, which was taken over by Barrick Gold in
2006; and Bryan Coates, who was chief financial officer of
Osisko Mining Corp until it was acquired earlier in June.

It is also nominating two mining engineers: Stephen Lang,
current chairman and former chief executive of Centerra Gold Inc
, and Luc Lessard, who worked on the design and
construction of Osisko's flagship Canadian Malartic mine.

Timmins President Arturo Bonillas is one of those leaving
the board, but he is set to remain president, the company said.
(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Peter Galloway)